Game rules – Page 2 – Black Chantry Productions

Play the Fall of London storyline!

Yes! There is an official storyline for The Fall of London, so you can play a special event when the new set arrives. Check out rules and special cards at the Storyline download page!

RELATED:
– The Fall of London

Printer friendly rulebooks now available!

Hi! Now we added printer friendly Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition rulebooks to the Utilities section of Blackchantry.com (and below). These are still illustrated, but with simple graphics so they load faster and saves you some ink if you want to print.

Printer friendly version English

Printer friendly version Spanish

Printer friendly version French

Copyright © 2024 Paradox Interactive AB. www.paradoxinteractive.com. All rights reserved. Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and Vampire: The Masquerade® are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB. All rights reserved.

New online version of the Vampire: The Eternal Struggle rulebook now available!

A online version of the fresh, illustrated Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition rulebook has been created. It is currently hosted by the player community VEKN at www.vekn.net/rulebook. Check it out, and please give VEKN or Black Chantry your feedback!

Rules Team Rulings with Fifth Edition rulebook addendum and errata (RTR 30/11/2020)

VTES - The Becoming - Art by Kyri Koniotis

Fellow Methuselahs,

To accompany the release of Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition, the following rule change will be effective December 30, 2020.

Rule Change: Default sect
Clans do not have a default sect anymore. This means that if a vampire changes clan, they keep their sect. For instance, a Derange played by Malkavian antitribu on a target vampire who is Camarilla Ventrue changes the target into a Camarilla Malkavian antitribu (not a Sabbat Malkavian antitribu as before).

This is a REVERSAL of the following rulings (based on the old rule):
LSJ 20030225, LSJ 19990924, LSJ 20010924.

The following cards have changed:
Becoming, The: Inherits the sire’s sect.
Brother in Arms: Inherits the sire’s sect.
Creation Rites: The vampire is now explicitly Sabbat.
Dual Form: Inherits the sire’s sect.
Nosferatu Bestial: Inherits the sire’s sect.
Third Tradition: Progeny: The vampire is now explicitly Camarilla.
Trophy: Progeny: Inherits the sire’s sect.

Fifth Edition Rulebook addendum

Drawing Cards (p. 7)
Whenever you are asked to draw from your crypt, move the top card from your crypt to your uncontrolled region.

Requirements for Playing Cards (p. 7)
Unless explicitly stated, costs you pay must be paid with resources you control: your pool, blood on vampires you control, cards in your ash heap, etc. For instance, you cannot play Enticement if you do not control the Edge, since you must burn it as part of its cost.

An exception is the “Rescue a Vampire from Torpor” action (p. 23) whose cost can be paid by the acting vampire or the rescued vampire, or the cost may be split between them.

Performing an action (p. 16)
The term “perform” applies to the entire course of the action, from the moment it is announced to the moment it is resolved. An action that is “performed” can end up by being successful or not. “Performing an action” does not imply that the action is successful.

Political Action Cards (p. 27)
Those cards simply say “1 vote”, rather than “worth 1 vote” (which was the wording used in older sets).

Quick Reference (p. 53)
The Discipline Blood Sorcery is also called Thaumaturgy in older sets. They are exactly the same.

The clan Banu Haqim is called Assamite in older sets. They are exactly the same.

Similarly, the clan Ministry (whose members are called Ministers) is called Followers of Set in older sets.

For instance, if a card requires a ready Banu Haqim, any ready Assamite will fulfill this requirement (and vice versa).

Fifth Edition Rulebook errata

Rulebook, p. 15
The 30 pool displayed as your pool do not necessarily reflect the state of the game at that moment (since you have spent some of them to bring vampires into play), unless you have found a way to regain enough pool to reach your initial 30 pool. Also, please note that there is no limit to the amount of pool a Methuselah can have.

Fifth Edition Helpsheets errata

Leave torpor
The cost of the action is missing: “Action cost: 2 blood”.

Diablerise a vampire in torpor
The word stealth is missing in the following sentence: “Undirected +1 stealth action if you control both vampires.”

Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition is available for all stores and distributors. For more information please visit the Products section at www.blackchantry.com. Contact us by mail or social media.

Download the Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition rulebook for free!

We at Black Chantry Productions want to make Vampire: The Eternal Struggle as available as possible for everyone. That is why you now can download PDF versions of the brand new illustrated rulebook and the five Fifth Edition clan helpsheets totally free from our site!

Vincent Ripoll is the very busy Rules Director for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle at Black Chantry. We asked him some questions about his role and what is going on ruleswise with the game:

Vincent, what do you do as the Rules Director?
– My role is quite technical, since it consists in ensuring the consistency of the rules with the existing rules – notably by taking into account all the existing rulings that complete the rules – while continuing to develop them. This includes among other things eliminating certain unnecessary complications, introducing new concepts to reunite certain rule points, and adapting the rules to the needs of game designers, for instance to follow some evolving aspects of the World of Darkness. I also spend a lot of time ensuring that cards we reprint follow those rules and use consistent patterns, not only in English but also in the various languages our game is printed in.

The Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition box set is now in stores. Were any particular rules changed for this set?
– The Fifth Edition is a perfect example of how the evolving lore has an impact on the game design, and by capillary action, on the rules themselves. For instance, Anarchs have taken a predominant part of the course of events in the World of Darkness. This was a perfect occasion to make them a sect, rather than a trait that behaved like a sect.
Another example is that clans are no longer tied to a sect by default. Previously, you had to know the default sect of a clan in order to properly play cards such as The Embrace, and some interactions were odd. For instance, if a Gangrel Prince created an Embrace, that Embrace would have been Independent, since clan Gangrel became Independent with the release of the first Anarch set in 2003, with no retroactive effect on the printed vampires. In both cases, removing those unnecessary details makes the game easier to play for all players, old and new.
Finally, some clan symbols were changed as well as some clan names – Assamites become Banu Haqim, Followers of Set become The Ministry, etc. These are cosmetic changes with no impact on the rules. For instance, the Assamite clan is now called Banu Haqim, but they are strictly equivalent: an Assamite is a Banu Haqim and can use cards requiring that clan, whatever name is used on the card.

Fifth Edition has a brand new, illustrated rulebook. What differs from the old rulebook?
– The previous rulebook was very thorough but needed some refreshment. It is a good, solid, technical document, but not a very user-friendly one. We wanted a new illustrated version as complete as the old one but easier to dive into, especially for new players. We used the services of Gaming Rules!, a company specialized in the writing of rulebooks for board games, since Vampire: The Eternal Struggle is very similar to a massive board game, and of Elisabet Pérez for the graphic design who both did an amazing job. It took us more than a year to create it, with a lot of feedback from everyone, and we cannot wait for everyone to be able to use it.

You also answer rules questions online. What are the most common questions?
– Many questions are from new or returning players, which is a good sign despite the pandemic situation. Some questions are about recent changes in cards, and some are about exotic situations that happened in the game. It is quite varied, but most of them already have an answer – I strongly advise everyone to use the search button on the VEKN forum or to use Codex of the Damned, a wonderful tool that collects all the rulings about the cards!

PDF downloads (also in ‘Utilities’ at Blackchantry.com):
– Fifth Edition Rulebook (English, Spanish, French)
– Helpsheets (English, Spanish, French)